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Yahoo scanned its users’ incoming emails for an unusual string of characters that had been linked to a terrorist organisation, according to a fresh report about the matter.

The New York Times says flagged messages were made available to the FBI, but the scans have now stopped. It adds that the tech company adapted one of its spam and child-abuse-image filters to carry out the task.

The details build on an earlier report by the news agency Reuters.

Yahoo declined to add to its previous statements, in which it said Reuters’ report was “misleading” and that it was “a law-abiding firm”. The California-based company also said the mail-scanning process outlined by Reuters “does not exist” on its systems, but did not explicitly address whether it had done so previously.

The New York Times says its report is based on interviews with two unnamed US government officials and a third anonymous person “familiar with” Yahoo. It says that FBI investigators had learned that agents of a foreign terrorist body were using Yahoo’s email service.

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A man and a teenager have been charged after the shooting of a 15-year-old boy riding on the back of a motorcycle.

The boy was left with a “serious head wound” in the attack on Hewitt Avenue, Sunderland on Wednesday evening.

Steven Thompson, 39, from the same street, has been charged with attempted murder, two firearms offences and perverting the course of justice. A 16-year-old boy has been charged with possessing a firearm and perverting the course of justice. He lives in the Sunderland area but cannot be identified because of his age.

Both have been remanded in custody to appear before South Tyneside Magistrates Court later. Northumbria Police said officers had not yet found any weapon.

The 15-year-old remains in a critical condition in Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary. The driver of the motorbike was not injured.

Residents said a small group of children played on motorbikes locally but were well-behaved and moved on if asked. Brogan Connify, 21, said it had been a “massive shock”. After the incident at about 20:40 BST, police cordoned off Hewitt Avenue, a street of semi-detached homes, while inquiries and forensic investigation took place.

Finland’s Defence Ministry says it has scrambled jets twice in the past 24 hours to monitor suspected airspace violations by Russian fighters.

A Russian Su-27 fighter was detected in the Gulf of Finland south of Porvoo late on Thursday, the ministry said.

Another Russian Su-27 was detected on a suspicious flight there earlier. “Russian military aviation over the Baltic Sea has been intense,” it said.

Finland is not in Nato but co-operates closely with the 28-nation alliance. Porvoo lies just east of Helsinki, and is 140km (87 miles) from the Russian border.

Nato has complained repeatedly of provocative Russian military flights in the Baltic region. But it is rare for Finland to report such suspected violations. Russian bombers also regularly fly long patrol missions from the Arctic down to the North Atlantic or Bay of Biscay, testing Nato reactions on the way. And Russia plans to step up similar patrols in the North Pacific, sending bombers from bases in eastern Siberia.

Russia was angered by the deployment of Nato forces in the three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – after those nations broke away from the Soviet Union in 1991 and joined Nato in 2004.

During the Cold War – which ended in 1991 – Finland remained neutral and developed strong trade ties with the Soviet Union.

A National Security Agency contractor has been arrested, accused of taking top secret information, officials say.

Harold Thomas Martin III is charged with theft of government property and unauthorised removal of “highly classified” materials. The 51-year-old had a top secret national security clearance and faces 10 years in prison.

Mr Martin’s lawyer said there was no evidence he had betrayed the US, a country he very much loved.

The Justice Department said he worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, the same contractor that employed NSA leaker Edward Snowden. Six of the documents found in Mr Martin’s possession were classified as top secret, “meaning that unauthorized disclosure reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the US”, the Justice Department said. According to a warrant, Mr Martin was arrested two days after his Glen Burnie, Maryland, home, garage and vehicle were searched on 27 August this year.

The FBI said Mr Martin at first denied taking the documents, but later admitted removing documents and digital files.

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Militant Islamist group al-Shabab says it has killed six Christians in north-eastern Kenya in an attack aimed at forcing them out of the region.

The grenade and gun attack was launched on a residential block in Mandera town when people were sleeping, police said. It was the latest in a spate of deadly attacks targeting Christians in the mainly Muslim region.

In December 2014, al-Shabab killed 38 non-Muslims at a quarry after separating them from Muslim workers. A few months earlier, 28 people were killed after Muslim passengers were split up from the other passengers.

When al-Shabab killed 148 people in an attack on Kenya’s north-eastern Garissa University College in April 2015, the militants reportedly singled out Christians and shot them, while freeing many Muslims.

The latest raid took place in the early hours of Thursday in an area popular with people who came from outside Mandera town.
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